The name is Hawaiian and roughly translates to “a messenger from afar arriving first,” per NASA.

Okay, so an asteroid from a distant star system doesn’t exactly confirm the existence of aliens or anything. But it does have important implications when it comes to our understanding of space. As Bustle puts it, “Asteroids like this help astronomers learn more about our galaxy and far-off places outside of our solar system that we don’t know much about.” The publication also states that “Scientists say our solar system could contain as many as 10,000 interstellar visitors,” so Oumuamua is hardly an outlier.

The first confirmed object from interstellar space is a rocky, cigar-shaped object with a reddish hue. The asteroid 'Oumuamua is up to a quarter mile (400 meters) long, and 10 times as long as it is wide. More: https://t.co/22bdnLIPazpic.twitter.com/DBwNDUty58